"Just how long have you known that man?" Jonas demanded.
Abigail clenched her teeth. She detested being the center of attention. "I don't want to talk about it, Jonas."
He was silent for a moment as he drained the rest of the tea from the mug Carol had given him. "Tell me what happened tonight, Abbey. And don't leave out anything, even a small detail you think may be insignificant."
Abbey set the teacup on the floor between them as she related the evening's events. She could feel the tension rising between her sisters but none of them pressed her for details or for explanations and she knew they wouldn't until Jonas left. Once he was gone she would really have to explain things and already she was getting the classic headache from magic overload.
"Oh, my." Carol broke the silence after Abbey finished. "This could be an international spy case, or something equally intriguing. All of you stay right there. I'll need to get the camera. We should record this for your children's children." She hurried into the kitchen.
"Murder isn't very intriguing, Aunt Carol," Sarah called after her. "It's just plain nasty. And we look awful. You can't take our pictures like this."
"Darling"--Carol bustled back into the room with a small camera in her hand--"these are the best photos of all. Unrehearsed and yet significant. The moment you all embarked on an international crime-fighting case involving foreign spies and handsome agents." She smiled happily at Abbey. "I know a dozen good love potions and even more spells, dear." She clicked away with the camera, taking pictures from several angles. "You just let me know if you need them with your young man."
"I don't have a young man," Abbey protested.
"He seems to think so," Carol said. "You have to learn to make yourself clear in matters of the heart. Believe me, I know. Hannah, dear, quit making faces at me. You should be used to having your picture taken."
"Not without fifteen makeup men to help her out," Jonas said.
"Go away," Hannah directed him, waving her arm. "I'm too tired to fight with you." She ignored Carol snapping more shots ferociously.
"You even manage to look elegant when you're sending me away, Hannah," Jonas said, standing up. "I've got to go, but I'll be back later to check on everyone. Anyone want help up to their room before I take off?"
"Are you sick? You never call me Hannah." Hannah pushed herself upright and regarded Jonas with a troubled gaze. "Are you all right?"
Her thick mass of platinum hair fell over her shoulder and pooled in spirals over the back of the couch. He looked away from her, refusing to meet her eyes.
"Jonas," Hannah insisted, "we can help you feel better. Just give us a minute."
His smile was tired. "Thanks, but I'm not allowing you to expend more energy in my direction. I just have a bad taste in my mouth right now. It isn't pleasant to find out that, under the right circumstances, you might be willing to kill someone in cold blood."
"You're human, Jonas," Sarah said gently. "We're your family. Of course you'd feel protective of us. And magic ties us all together with a much stronger bond. We don't know how it works in extreme circumstances. You didn't kill him. You did the right thing and you brought Abbey home to us. That's all that matters."
"I was never so glad to see someone in my entire life," Abbey added. "I feel so bad for Gene's family. They must be so frightened right now. He looked bad."
"He would have been dead without you, Abbey," Jonas confirmed. "If he makes it, he owes it to all of you. I've got a lot of work to do tonight, but call me if you remember anything else, Abbey. I'll check on you later and I'll step up patrols in this area as well."
"Thanks, Jonas," Sarah said. "We'll make certain Abbey's careful."
"All of you be careful," he insisted. "If it is the Russian mafia, they won't hesitate to kill all of you."
"Oh, dear," Carol said and fanned herself with her hand. "I've come at just the right time."
"Aunt Carol," Kate protested, "aren't you afraid?"
"I came home hoping to put excitement back in my life," Carol explained. "I'm still a young enough woman to find a good man. I loved my darling Jefferson, but he's been gone five years and I'm tired of sitting in that huge southern house all alone, surrounded by my photograph albums and nothing else. I love my job as a Creative Memories consultant, but I want to make my memories, not just advocate to others to preserve theirs."
"We're glad you've come, Aunt Carol," Kate said. "We especially need help planning the weddings." She looked at Sarah. "Or should we say wedding? Sarah and I want to have a double wedding."
"What about Abbey?" Joley said mischievously, nudging Abigail with her bare foot. "Maybe we'll have three brides."
"Very funny, Joley. Aunt Carol, take a picture of Joley. You'll make a fortune on the Internet. Rock star lounging at home in her favorite superstar PJs. You could sell it to the tabloids," Abigail suggested.
Joley merely rolled her ankle in small lazy circles. "You'd better spill the beans, Abbey. I've got the mother of all headaches and the least you can do is tell us how you sort of are, but maybe not, engaged to a Russian stranger who just happens to be a spy."
"He's not a spy," Abbey said.
"How do you know, dear?" Carol asked as she tipped the camera to get a better angle on Joley. "Joley, move your head just a little. I'm picking up a glare."
"You can't be picking up a glare," Joley protested, turning her head to look behind her. "It's dark outside."
"I'm certainly picking up a light at the window. Oh, it's gone. It must have been the moon."
There was a sudden silence. The seven Drake sisters looked at each other uneasily. Hannah raised her arms and a wind rushed through the house, setting the drapes dancing closed across the windows. Joley sketched a complicated pattern in the air. At once silver symbols leapt to life, sparkling and fading away just as fast.
"What did you see, Sarah?" Carol asked, her voice losing the teasing notes and becoming serious. "Because I didn't like what I saw."
Carol had the gift of "sight" just as Sarah did. She was the eldest of her seven sisters. Sarah and Carol exchanged a long look and then both turned to Abigail.
Abbey felt a chill sweep down her spine.
"What happened in Russia, Abbey?" Sarah asked. "There is death between you and this man. I see blood and death and violence."
There was no accusation in Sarah's voice, none in her expression, but Abbey wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. She was different. Flawed. Her crime an unspeakable one. She shook her head. "I can't. Please don't ask me. Everything will change and you're the only refuge I have left to me besides the sea. If you love me, don't ask me to explain."
"It's because we do love you," Sarah said gently.
Abigail dragged herself up, tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I can't talk about it." She couldn't talk about it, couldn't think about it, slamming the door in her mind closed to prevent throwing herself off a cliff. She would never be free of what she'd done, the harm she'd caused. And she'd never be free of Aleksandr Volstov.
3
CONCEALED in the shrubbery at the bottom of the hill, Aleksandr stood staring up at the house on the cliff. Abigail Drake. She'd haunted him for years. He knew which room was hers. It faced out over the hillside, with an ocean view from her balcony. The sliding glass doors were wide open and white lace drapes danced with the breeze coming in off the ocean. He had been most careful to observe every entry point, every weakness of the house, when he was inside. He'd even tested the stairs for creaks.
The house was enormous and seemed shrouded in secrets. Fog lay heavy around the sprawling building and in the trees, as if guarding the structure and its occupants. The misty tendrils were eerie in the silvery moonbeams, wrapping the balconies and windows in ghostly gray.
She was up in that house. In that room. Only a few yards away from him, no longer halfway around the world. She couldn't escape him this time. She'd returned every letter he'd painstakingly written. He'd put his heart and soul into those letters and s
he'd rejected them without even opening them. Some of the letters had traveled to several countries to reach her. He still had every one of them, smudged with half a dozen postmarks. He'd told himself he was a fool, but he couldn't let it go. Couldn't forget about her. Couldn't stop the way she crept into his mind a hundred times a day and remained in his dreams night after night.
He took a cautious step onto the property. Clouds spun across the moon, casting an eerie mix of shadows and flickering moonlight over the landscape. Trees and shrubs swayed as if something guarded the hillside hidden beneath the dense thicket of leaves and branches. Some branches were raised toward the sky while others bent in twisted, sweeping shapes toward the ground, long arms bent on deterring intruders. It was as if the property itself wanted to keep out intruders.
Once again he went still, getting a feel for the rhythm of the night, uneasiness creeping into his mind and body so that he felt the hair on his neck rise. He shrank down instinctively, his body aware there was more than fog and moonlight in the trees almost before his brain registered the information. He was tuned to every night sound, every cricket and frog. The tendrils of fog shrouding the house reached out like macabre snakes, twisting through the dense foliage, further obscuring vision, but he was relying on instincts, not sight.
Aleksandr slid deeper into the shadows and went motionless again, his senses heightened and on full alert. He heard nothing, saw nothing, yet he knew he was not alone. He waited patiently, shifting position only when he had full cover. Finally he caught glimpses of a dark shape moving stealthily through the trees. The fog and shrubbery obscured his vision, but he heard the scuff of shoes on rocks and dropped to the ground. Aleksandr was a big man and needed stealth to move in close to the hunter. He drew his gun and slithered through the brush. A man stood in the shadow of the trees staring up at the house through a pair of binoculars. Aleksandr's heart jumped when he realized the binoculars appeared to be trained on Abigail's room.
The drapes on the French doors swayed and Aleksandr tensed when he saw Abigail walk out onto the balcony and face the sea. She was wearing a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms and a thin spaghetti-strap tank that didn't quite cover her flat belly. She leaned her elbows on the railing and stared out over the ocean. The wind tugged at her long mass of bright red hair and pushed her thin top across her breasts. Her hair fell below her waist in a long bright red cascade, the wind sweeping it across her pale skin. He remembered the feel of the silky strands, soft and sensual, sliding over him.
It took all of his self-control not to call out a warning to her. He inched his way toward the man in the shadows. The man turned his head slightly and Aleksandr's gut clenched and rolled. Prakenskii. He was considered a violent killer and a termination order had been out on him for years. What was he doing in the small town of Sea Haven? Aleksandr crept within striking distance. He could not afford to leave Prakenskii any room to maneuver. His entire world narrowed to his task. Kill Prakenskii and keep Abigail safe. Nothing else mattered at that moment, or could matter.
"Just keep your hands right where they are, Ilya Prakenskii," Aleksandr ordered, his voice low. "Stay where you are."
Prakenskii stiffened, raised his hands slightly. "Aleksandr. I had no idea you were in the vicinity. We meet in the strangest of places." A small smile touched his mouth. "Have you recovered from our last little 'talk'?"
"Completely," Aleksandr said pleasantly. "A few weeks of recuperation." He shrugged. "Such is life. And you?"
"A little reminder when it grows cold, but thank you for asking."
"What brings you to this part of the world?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," Prakenskii said. "Although, now that I've seen the woman, I don't need an explanation. It was rumored you'd lost interest in her."
"The rumors were wrong."
"She's the one the scandal was about, isn't she? You nearly lost your career and you made a very bitter enemy."
"I've made my share of enemies," Aleksandr agreed with a small shrug. "So have you. It is our way of life."
"True. I was hoping your superiors would let you go, but they appear more intelligent than I gave them credit for and they kept you." He tilted his head. "Or you have far more power than I believed."
"Turn around, Ilya." Aleksandr refused to be drawn into a discussion of politics. They both had firsthand knowledge that the red tape of the various government organizations, splinter groups, and jealous coworkers could be a minefield.
"One never likes to hear that you are anywhere near, Aleksandr," Prakenskii remarked as he turned, his hands still in plain sight, the binoculars conspicuously in his left fist. "She's a beautiful woman. It's always a shame when a beautiful woman dies, don't you think?"
"Fortunately my enemies know me, Ilya, so she is in no danger. I would hunt down and kill anyone who harmed her. And I would kill their families and their friends and their every associate until I was caught." Aleksandr spoke matter-of-factly. He shrugged, but the gun remained rock steady. "It would take even Interpol a long time to catch me and there would be a bloodbath before it happened. Drop the binoculars, and I don't want to see your shoulder move. Open your hand and let them fall to the ground."
"Come now, Aleksandr, these are very expensive. You just can't expect me..." Ilya threw the binoculars, snapping them hard into Aleksandr's chest and rushing forward to chop viciously at his gun hand.
Almost too late, Aleksandr saw the thin razor blade in Ilya's hand as he sliced toward Aleksandr's stomach. Killers like Prakenskii used poison, coating the blade with a lethal dose so all it took was the lightest of nicks and their victim was dead within minutes. He leapt back so that the blade narrowly missed him and slammed the butt of his gun on the back of Ilya's hand so that the knife fell to the ground. His foot lashed out, smashing hard into the side of Ilya's knee, collapsing the leg, forcing him to stagger.
It gave Aleksandr enough time to bring his gun into position as Ilya drew his secondary weapon and aimed between Aleksandr's eyes. They stood face-to-face, both ready to die in a single heartbeat.
Aleksandr thought of Prakenskii stalking Abbey, plunging the knife into her or shooting her until her lifeless body lay bloody and broken. One move was all it took to prevent her dying, a slow squeezing of the trigger.
"I am merely the agent, not the sender," Prakenskii pointed out, reading death in the other man's eyes. "If you want her to live, you need me to return to the others and give them your message. They will not want you coming after them. It is that, or we both die here."
"I think we both die."
Prakenskii shook his head. "It is foolish of you to waste your life. I believe you will do as you say and come after anyone who harms her. I have no wish to be looking over my shoulder for you for the rest of my life. I will not touch your woman and I will deliver the message that she is to be left alone."
Aleksandr studied Ilya's expressionless face. He had known the killer to be many things, but a liar wasn't one of them. "Did you kill Danilov?"
There was a small silence. "I don't know Danilov."
"He was my partner."
Ilya shook his head. "Not me. I've never heard of him."
Aleksandr believed him and that made Prakenskii's presence even more of a mystery. "If you get in the way of my investigation, Ilya, or if you're involved in any way, I'll have to bring you in. You know that."
"You can try, Aleksandr, but we both will end up with more scars and my arthritis will be bad in my old age."
"If you don't stop working for Sergei, you won't live to be an old man."
"I'm walking away, Aleksandr." Prakenskii took a cautious step back. "There's no reason to do this. I wasn't here to kill the woman."
"Why were you here?"
Prakenskii hesitated, a small smile touching his cold mouth briefly. "Curiosity. I wanted to see what kind of woman could have so many men tied up in knots."
"Who?" The last thing Aleksandr wanted was for Sergei Nikitin to be interested in Abiga
il Drake. His mouth went dry at the thought. Prakenskii wasn't the only killer working for Nikitin. And some of the others didn't have Prakenskii's discipline or respect. They hadn't trained with Aleksandr and didn't know his reputation or capabilities the way Prakenskii did. "Why would Nikitin be interested in Abigail?"
"I'm going, Aleksandr. Stay out of my way."
Aleksandr matched him step for step, the gun never wavering as they moved like dancers down the rough slope. "I heard my name was at the very top of a hit list, Ilya; is that why you've come?"
"I would kill you to defend my life, Aleksandr, but even I have a code. I'm not here for you." The hit man shrugged.
His reply told Aleksandr that Prakenskii felt much the same way as Aleksandr did. They'd grown up together and had few people they were loyal to. It still mattered. It was one of the reasons Aleksandr never tried too hard to bring Prakenskii in. One never knew if he really was the killer he was reputed to be, or if he'd merely made powerful enemies in the wrong place. Just as Aleksandr had done.
"You work for Nikitin, and I've heard he is in bed with Ignatev." Aleksandr threw the name out to see what came back.
"Women are trouble, Aleksandr, you should have remembered that." Prakenskii risked a glance toward the cliff house. "Ignatev is a vengeful man and his hatred runs deep. He is a man who craves power and will get it any way that he can."
Aleksandr kept his gun trained on Prakenskii and continued to move with him step for step, careful to keep him in sight. He was a dangerous man, but he had a strange set of ethics. Aleksandr couldn't quite figure him out. They both had grown up in and been trained in the same school, both perfecting the art of killing. Aleksandr had grown weary of the politics of espionage and chose police work. Prakenskii had grown impossible to control and the government put out a termination order on him. Everyone sent against him had been returned in a body bag. Aleksandr and Prakenskii had known each other too many years and they avoided one another unless Prakenskii was on the wrong side of one of Aleksandr's cases. Their meetings usually ended up in a bloody battle neither won.
Would she be safer with Prakenskii dead or alive? Killing Ilya would cost Aleksandr his own life. He had no doubt about that and his death would leave Abbey without protection against Sergei Nikitin. Aleksandr risked a glance up at the balcony. Abbey had gone inside, unaware of the two men facing off on the hillside leading to her home.